Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/361

 GLASS. 329 Miriam, " the Hand of Mary." May we not see in this, in spite of its name, a survival from those hands we find so often on the Phoenician steles (see Vol. I., Fig. 192)? Certain processes of coloration also seem to have been preserved ; nothing could be more brilliant or pleasing to the eye than the blue and green of many a little flask and phial ; they remind us of the Egyptian enamels, of the most carefully wrought specimens of Phoenician glass. 1 The evidences of history, of the fragments that have come down to us, of the later course of an industry rooted in the soil, all com bine to prove that Phoenicia, if not the native, was the adopted country of glassmaking, was the country in which it reached the greatest perfection ever known in antiquity. In the doubts which may attack us as to the real origin of many specimens of glass that still survive, the most prudent course will be to assign them to Phoenicia. Her factories were more prolific, her artists were more skilful, than those of other nations, and the finest pieces must therefore have issued from her workshops. We have another reason for attaching our account of this industry to Phoenicia in the fact that, when writing of Egypt and Assyria, our attention was almost monopolised by their fine arts, for the full consideration of which we certainly had no superfluous space. In the case of Phoenicia, neither sculpture nor architecture are original enough to justify us in sacrificing, in their interest, the laborious artizans who produced the larger part of the cargoes carried by the Phoenician ships, even as far as the distant Atlantic. The Phoenicians were but middling artists, but they were great industrials, and a history of their activity would be but ill-proportioned which did not devote a generous space to the account of their " art manufactures." While some of the objects to which we are about to call the attention of our readers may well have been made in Egypt, it may also be the case that not all of them really belong to the period of antiquity to which we are supposed to restrict ourselves. But it must be remembered that in such an industry as glass- making and working, things did not progress in ancient times as 1 Figs, i and 2 in our plate viii. give some idea of these colours. The double mask of Hathor, found at Ascalon by M. Clermont-Ganneau and now in the British Museum, is a splendid example of this body (CLERMONT-GANNEAU, Hmagerie Phenicienne, p. 90), VOL. II. t' U